Abstract

With the creation of the Constitution of 1917, Mexican revolutionaries granted their future governments sweeping powers with which to shape the modern Mexican state during the twentieth century. Many of the constitutional provisions sought reforms and targeted the traditional sources of power and wealth enjoyed by the privileged classes. Land reform, control of commercial monopolies, public health, and the provision of basic foodstuffs for the Mexican population became the focus of presidential administrations working to produce social justice. Government bureaucracies and policies developed as the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) worked to realize the revolutionary ideology established by the Constitution. One of the gravest injustices they sought to right was the perpetual hunger and malnutrition facing the masses of the Mexican population.